The nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) relates directly to the criteria for major depression listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) (Allgaier, Pietsch, Frühe, Sigl-Glöckner, & Schulte-Körne, 2012). The PHQ-9 also assesses for the severity of the depressive symptoms with each of the nine items of the tool correlates with one of the listed criteria for a depressive episode that is listed in the DSM-IV-TR (Tsai, Huang, Liu, Huang, Huang, & Liu, 2014). 2014). Therefore, the responses are valued on a four-point scale from zero to three dependent upon the frequency of the patient’s symptoms (Tsai et al., 2014). Thus, scores can range from zero to 27 with a list of …show more content…
(2007), in a meta-analysis completed by Gilbody et al. in 2007, the PHQ-9 screener was found to have an 80 percent sensitivity and have a 92 percent specificity for the adult population studied. Prior to the work completed by Richardson et al. (2010), the sensitivity and specificity of the PHQ-9 in the adolescent patient population had not been studied (Allgaier et al., 2007). According to Richardson et al. (2010) for the adolescent patient population, the PHQ-9 has a sensitivity of 89.5 percent and a specificity of 94.4 percent (Allgaier et al., 2007). The gold standard for validation, for the diagnosis of depression in this study, was the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC) (Allgaier et al., 2007). Both categorical and dimensional algorithms were utilized to assign sensitivity and specificity values (Allgaier et al., 2007). Allgaier et al. (2007) conducted another study to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the PHQ-9 and PHQ-2 in the adolescent patient population. Hence, Allgaier et al. (2007) found that the PHQ-9 was a more effective screener tool than the PHQ-2. The sensitivity was found to be 90 percent and the specificity was found to be 86.5 percent, indicating that the PHQ-9 is a valid assessment tool in both the adult and adolescent patient populations (Allgaier et al., …show more content…
(2012). Screening for depression in adolescents: Validity of the Patient Health Questionnaire in pediatric care. Depression and Anxiety, 29(10), 906-913. Doi: 10.1002/da.21971.
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